Mr T - Lowther Primary School

Tea...
Hanaa Benrahal catches up with
Mr Tuffney over a cup of tea and
poses some interesting questions!
H: Firstly, thank you for agreeing to
do this interview – it’s really exciting.
We all know you as our wonderful
head teacher Mr T, but we’d
like to know a bit more about the
‘real’ Mr T. (Mr T ‘Oh yesss’)
So, what made you choose to do
teaching in the first place
Mr T: Ummm, well I didn’t become a teacher
until I was 28, so a lot of people of people become
teachers when they are 22-23 – they go
to university, then train to be a teacher. I was
working for the Early Learning Centre, but my
sister is a teacher and about 2 years before I
trained to be a teacher, my mum decided that
she wanted to be a teacher- she was 50-
something and she thought – yeah I’d like to be
teacher. Basically, they both said that I would
enjoy and my friends thought that I would be a
really good teacher and that I would enjoy it a
lot more than the job I was doing. So, I thought
yeah, let’s give it a go and I would say it has
been the best thing I’ve ever done. I love it!
H: We know you have fantastic ideas
like the homework challenges,
….with Mr T
LAFTA’s and Takeover day, but what
we’d really like to know is what has
been the highlight of your career so
far
Mr T: he highlight – ummmm – I think getting the
job here.
H: Just getting the job
Mr T: Well, Mrs Henchie - well you know how we
sometimes have student teachers here – learning
how to be a teacher We had quite a few
teachers that trained here. I had to go to three
different schools to do my training and Lowther
was the middle one – and I was in the Year 4
class. And, when I finished the training, I got a
book bag when I had to leave and go back to university.
And in the book bag Mrs Henchie had
given me a pen, but she also gave me a job application
form. (Mr T laughs). And then I came for
an interview and I got the job! And I think now
I’ve been here for 11 years, I think that was the
highlight - getting the job in the first place, being
a teacher – at what I think is the best school.
H: And now it’s your school!
Mr T: Well, it’s our school – yeah.
H: Well, it’s your school!
Mr T: No – it’s our school! My school, your
school, our school!
H: Have you always been a teacher
and if not, what were you doing before
you started teaching
Mr T: Ok, I haven’t always been a teacher. I
worked in what was called ‘Retail Management’.
So, I’m going to give you a couple of ‘claims to
fame’. I did lots of different things – I worked
for three different companies, including working
for Hamleys – you know, big Hamleys – the
biggest toy shop, well used to be biggest toy
shop in the world – which is in Regents Street.
But anyway, I did various different things -
some things when you start off (in doing those
things) I did a bit of work in the summer holidays
when I was a student – they got me doing
all sorts of crazy things – dressing up as a
clown and Postman Pat – all sorts of things.
Then, as I kind of developed that bit of my career,
I had to spend some time training the
staff in using a new toy – an interactive Barney
– it interacted with your computer. It was a
soft toy and when there was something on the
screen, Barney would start talking, he would
say “Can you find the blue square” and then
when they clicked on the blue square the toy
would say “You’ve found the blue square –
well done!” And I had to spend two days in a
room with Barney! So, that’s a little bit about
me. He (Barney) actually went on to become the
best selling toy that Christmas. You know Fur-
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